


I'm Not Here

by Fairleigh



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Modern Era, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/pseuds/Fairleigh
Summary: I’m not here,Mel thinks.This isn’t happening.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Returning Sailor Thought Lost at Sea/His Mourning Husband
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	I'm Not Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soarc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soarc/gifts).



_I’m not here,_ Mel thinks. _This isn’t happening._

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” a man dressed in a somber black suit says.

Mel stares at the suit. It’s hard to focus on the man who’s wearing it, since Mel is pretty sure he doesn’t actually know him and it’s not like folks wear nametags at funerals.

“We’re here for you, you know,” the man continues, not bothering to wait for Mel to formulate a suitable response. “Anything you need — just ask. We believe in looking after our people. We think of you as family.” The man hands out a cream-colored business card.

Mel takes the card and glances down at it. The man is an attorney and a representative of The Company. Insurance & Liability. Because of course he is. Mel recalls how he used to joke about how they shouldn’t call them The Company, that they should call them The Merchant Marine Mafia instead. The nickname wouldn’t even be much of an exaggeration, he remembered saying.

Well, he doesn’t think it’s particularly funny anymore. He clenches the business card tightly in his fist. He wishes he were brave enough to rip it in half.

The man inclines his head and melds back into the crowd. Just as well. Mel doesn’t exactly have many good feelings about The Company these days.

 _Thirteen months_ , he thinks. _Thirteen fucking months, and all I have of Kieran is a death certificate and a symbolic, empty casket._

~*~*~

He was always complaining about it to Kieran: “You’re hardly ever here!”

Two months at sea, two weeks on land. Keiran was a merchant seaman, and that was the container ship schedule.

“I am what I am, and I am a lover of the sea,” Kieran liked to say.

“You’re also a lover of Mel,” Mel liked equally to remind him.

“What I am is what you love about me.”

What Kieran said was true. They’d met in the lively nightlife district of one of the largest port cities in the world. Mel might get seasick just from swimming in a choppy ocean, but he loved the rough and tumble of the bedroom as much as the next guy, and Kieran was the best he’d ever had. Mel had never wept during sex before, but with Kieran he did.

Everything about Kieran was romance made flesh. Look at what he did for a living! Working on container ships meant that he saw parts of the world — and made contributions to its smooth functioning — that few people ever imagined! So, yes, it was hard to be oceans apart from Kieran, but Kieran wouldn’t be Kieran without the sea.

They got married during one of his weeks ashore and made love frantically throughout their waking hours, pausing only to eat, bathe, or sleep. Then, at the end of those two blissful weeks, Kieran shipped out yet again.

“Two months, beloved husband, and then I’ll be right back here,” Kieran said. “It’s a promise.”

~*~*~

He broke that promise. His ship went missing.

The Company doesn’t even bother notifying next of kin when they learn of its disappearance. Mel only finds out after Kieran doesn’t come home on schedule. They only have two weeks together, after all; every single moment is infinitely precious and, if lost, never regained.

Mel tries ringing up headquarters. It takes him ages to get through, and when he finally does, it’s obvious that they’re more concerned about the missing contents of that ship than its crew.

A single ship can transport over twenty-thousand standard, twenty-foot long containers, and the contents of those containers could easily represent cargo valued at … well. Needless to say, it’s a big number with lots of zeros tacked on at the end, and The Company is inordinately concerned about the adverse implications for its bottom line. For an ordinary guy like Mel, though, the number just seems unfathomably large.

Kieran’s scheduled weeks ashore pass. Then another week, and another. Then a month, and a second. A third. A fourth. The Company’s customers are pissed. If they’re not getting their cargo back, and it’s sure looking like they’re not, they want financial compensation. Insurance payouts and whatnot. The handful of lost crew becomes an afterthought.

“What do you mean, the ocean’s a big place?!” Mel shouts down the phone at The Company rep.

“What I said,” The Company rep says.

The ocean _is_ an awfully big place, as it turns out. Big enough even for giant container ships, plus cargo and crew, to get lost in it and disappear without a trace.

 _He isn’t here_ , Mel thinks, delirious with grief. _Why isn’t he_ here _?!_

~*~*~

A year passes.

After a year and a week, Kieran is officially declared deceased, and Mel holds his funeral shortly thereafter.

After thirteen months and a week, Kieran returns from the dead.

Not literally, of course. He’d never _really_ died. It was all just for show. And the insurance money. They didn’t tell Kieran the plan until after he’d shipped out, and naturally, he wasn’t given the choice of opting out.

Mel was more right than he knew when he nicknamed them The Merchant Marine Mafia. The Company was dirty, and they were in cahoots with other Companies at both ends of the distribution chain to pull a fast one and collect on the insurance money. The claims took a year to finalize.

“You should’ve called the man back after the funeral. They took a life insurance policy out on me, with themselves as beneficiaries, and they would’ve given you a cut if you’d asked for their help,” Kieran says, grinning lopsidedly at Mel.

Mel rolls his eyes. He doesn’t care a whit. In fact, he’s _glad_ he didn’t have anything to do with that man dressed in a somber black suit. He doesn’t want to traffic in dirty money. Besides, if he didn’t like The Company before, you can bet your bottom dollar that he absolutely _loathes_ The Company now!

“It’s gonna be hard for a dead man to find a new job,” Kieran says ruefully.

Mel isn’t worried; Kieran is resourceful. It’ll be something to do with the sea because Kieran loves the sea. But in the meantime, Mel relaxes in his husband’s embrace.

Kieran is here. That’s all that matters.


End file.
